Kobyluck Disappointed With 23rd Place Finish At NHMS
Loudon, N.H. (September 18, 2010): Matt Kobyluck’s best statistics don’t typically show up at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, but the Mohegan Sun Casino team had hoped to improve their numbers in Friday night’s New Hampshire 125. Prior to the race, Kobyluck was more confident than ever, but Lady Luck had other plans for them.
After running as high as 11th place, Kobyluck got caught up in a melee on a lap 79 restart that broke the track bar bracket on his No. 40 Mohegan Sun Chevrolet and forced the team to fix it in the pits. Kobyluck went six laps down and was relegated to a 23rd place finish at the end of the night.
“We ended up getting hit in the right rear on that restart and that pushed us into the inside wall right at the start/finish line,” explained Kobyluck.
Kobyluck qualified 13th fastest for the race, and felt “racey” heading into the NASCAR K&N Pro Series event. He ran a conservative race trying to save whatever he had for the second half of the night when it would count.
“We had an okay car – we didn’t have a great car,” said Kobyluck. “But we had a top-10 car anyway. We were better than some of the guys that finished in the top seven or eight. We just never had a chance to get there.”
Kobyluck had already made a fuel and tire stop by the time the lap 79 accident sent him to the pits. The guys thrashed getting the track bar bracket changed, but inevitably lost laps while doing it. More determined than ever, Kobyluck decided to stick it out and hope to gain a little ground in the point standings.
“There was no way we were going to make up six laps so we were just waiting for other people to fall out. We did gain a couple of spots by staying out there so we did make the best out of a bad situation,” he said.
Kobyluck entered the New Hampshire 125 sixth in points and maintained that position despite the 23rd place finish. He currently sits 17 points out of fifth place.
The New Hampshire 125 will air on SPEED on Thursday, September 23rd at 6 p.m. ET.
For more information on Matt Kobyluck, Mohegan Sun Casino and Resort, or the Mohegan Sun race team, visit www.mattkobyluck.com.